


Takes a Woman Like Your Kind

by KriegsaffeNo9



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Arcades, Bizarrely violent cartoon bowling balls and pins, Drinking, F/F, Fluff, Gen, bowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 08:52:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14101806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KriegsaffeNo9/pseuds/KriegsaffeNo9
Summary: ...to find the woman in me.There's a night of free bowling to enjoy, and Akko takes charge in enjoying it.  Diana, on the other hand, runs into a couple of rough patches.Actual, uncomplicated(??) fluff.  From me.  Brace yourselves.





	Takes a Woman Like Your Kind

For the first time in a long time, perhaps for the first time ever, Akko was all kinds of excited to get called in to Finnelan's office. She presumed Sucy and Lotte were too even if Sucy didn't show it very well.

"The fundraiser, as you all know, was spectacularly successful," Finnelan said, her new gold fangs glinting in the light. "However, as the fundraiser went in an unexpected direction, several of our original auction items remain and cannot be sold or exchanged outside that context..."

Sucy gestured for her to get on with it.

"Two free games of bowling for a couple and a plus-two," Finnelan said, holding out a certificate printed on letter paper. "With ten free tokens for the arcade... with drink purchase."

"I'll take it!" Akko, grabbing it. "Sucy, Lotte, wanna come with me and Diana?"

"Yes," Sucy said with the enthusiasm of a man volunteering to get hit with a litterbox.

"That sounds wonderful!" Lotte said. "It's been too long since I've been bowling! My dad likes it. And _The Big Lebowski_. And that one movie with Bill Murray in it!"

"Weren't there two other options?" Sucy said.

"Yes," Finnelan said, "but they've already been selected."

"Whoopee. I'm going to mix some emergency potions for the trip." Sucy slithered away, Lotte hiking after her; Akko dug her phone out and put in a call. "Hi, Diana! Ready to go bowling?"

"Should I bring anything?" Diana said.

"Do you have shoes or a ball?"

"Why would it require its own footwear?"

"...Diana, have you ever bowled?"

"When I was a child, Aunt Daryl would have the servants set up ninepins on the lawn and give me candy if I could hit one of them while making it look like an accident."

"Okay," Akko said. "Get yourself ready for an extracurricular lecture, 'cause Akko the Rock is gonna learn you."

* * *

Akko took her head in hand and cricked her neck like an action hero killing a mook silently. For the occasion she dressed in a blue polo with a smiling Cartoon World Akko logo on the breast and smart business-casual pants. "Find your ovaries and make sure they're screwed in tight, ladies, 'cause we've got some alleys to dominate like we're the Punisher and the pins are the people that the Punisher fights and the bowling balls are like big, slow bullets like I dunno his guns got stolen and he has to use a cannon for a while but he makes it work."

"We get it," Sucy said, who for the occasion dressed up in her school uniform.

Diana looked around.

The Astro Lounge Bowling Alley and Arcade was a timeless place, in that it was built in the early aughts to 90s kitsch standards which were redolent with 60s pop culture references. The place was dimly lit, damn-near dark, with star-like lights speckled across the ceiling between bars of blue mood lighting. The flatscreen TVs mounted to the walls over the pins and over the ball return were the brightest things visible from the front, beyond the dreamy aurora of the arcade and the helpful neon BAR sign.

She had no idea how to process this place. It was like stepping into another dimension. Akko's hand on her shoulder shocked her out of a stunned reverie. "What...?" she said.

"We gotta get special bowling shoes so we can bowl without killing people," Akko said, enunciating like she was teaching English.

"Right," Diana said. "Lead the way."

"And we gotta pick out balls. I didn't pack mine 'cause I didn't wanna wreck any of my wreckables. Man, woulda been nice to have against the cockatrice, though..."

Sucy tilted several degrees. "Ow, I broke my ankle. I'm gonna sit this one out, guys, or I'll die from sepsis."

Diana flicked her wand into her hand. "I can fix that. Stand still."

"No, it's fine," Sucy said, tilting the other direction and away from the alley. "That wet dirty alley across the street looks nice and safe, I'm going to lie down with the filth for a while. I'll knit back together."

"Come on, Sucy!" Lotte said, putting her arm around Sucy to Sucy's incredible disdain. "If you loosen up, you'll have tons of fun! At least a couple of frames, alright? I can take your turns for you if you'd like."

"Bad news, guys!" Akko said. "The whatsit doesn't pay for shoes! So are we gonna split the bill, or..."

"Don't you get that government stipend?" Sucy said.

"It's gone down since a lot of people kind of wish they exploded a few months ago," Akko said.

"...fine," Sucy said, handing over a few damp bills from inside her uniform.

* * *

The TV hanging over the ball return listed the names LOTTE, SUCY, DIANA, and AKKO in that order. Lotte stretched, her tummy peeking between her Nightfall fan-made shirt and pants. "Mm~" The song "She's So High" by Tal Bachman played over the speakers. "Alright, let's do it!" She dried her hands over the little air vent on the ball return, picked up her pink-and-white-marbled ball, made her approach, and gave it a gentle fling down the alley. It curved to the side and whacked about half the pins down.

Diana watched in silent fascination as Lotte stepped down from the slightly elevated bowling floor, waited for their neighbor to take his turn at bowl, and follow up with a second throw that shaved a few pins from the far right. "Ah, darn," she said. "You're up, Sucy!"

Sucy slithered to the ball return. She picked up her 8-ball-themed ball with a telekinesis spell, set it on the ground, and inched into it, gently kicking it down the lane. It rolled with torturous slowness until it petered out in the middle of the alley. "Oops. Guess we're done for. Been a good game, now we have to go--"

An inaudible missive played over the speakers and a maintenance guy came by with a big stick. He nudged Sucy's ball into the gutter.

"Zhardammit," she said, lying on the floor. Lotte huffed and took her next turn, whacking four pins.

"You're up!" Akko said, patting Diana on the back.

Diana stood up. The stiff bowling shoes felt like formal shoes that dropped out of their sophomore year at formal shoe school. Imitating Lotte, she dried her hand on the cool air whispering out of the vent, then took her green bowling ball in hand and approached the line.

She took a deep breath, swung the ball in a wide arc, then took a few confident steps to the line and set off the over-the-line alarm. The buzzer startled her and she half-dropped the ball, which hit the lane and slid directly into the gutter.

"It's cool!" Akko said. "You still get the next throw, and you didn't hit any, so you could get a 10 and save this throw!"

"A-alright," Diana said. She waited for her ball, picked it up, practiced her approach, made her attack, and watched the ball glide far to the right and into the gutter. The pin setter knocked her pins down for her and set them down for Akko. "...oh..." she said, rubbing her wrist. "Is that it...?"

"It's cool," Akko said, turning her around and giving her a soft kiss on the lips. "First time jitters. You'll get the swing of it, you know?"

"Swing, I get it," Diana said.

"Now watch my form and you'll get it."

Akko popped her knuckles, picked up her translucent ball with an actual human skull in its center. The ball flew as if fired out of a cannon and knocked down every pin in a glorious cacophony that sent the pins bouncing around like shrapnel. The scoreboard screen showed a cheaply-CGI-animated bowling ball bursting in through a window and unloading twin SMGs on a room full of pins, rolling to a stop in the midst of the pins' hole-ridden bodies, then sticking its guns in its thumb hole and blowing the word "STRIKE" out of the back of itself.

Akko stepped down. "Lotte, you're up!" she said.

Diana stared at Akko, unaware her mouth was open.

After Lotte's turn, Sucy hid behind the curved bench seat. Diana insisted on using Sucy's slots to practice. She fetched a lighter ball from the rows of racks underneath the snack-and-drink tables overlooking the lanes and gave the ball an experimental hurl, mindful of her wrist. The ball nearly made it halfway down the alley before hitting the gutter and staying there.

By the time it was Akko's turn again Diana had gone through three other balls to no success. Soon she spent the entirety of her friends' turns swapping out balls, testing weights and throws and approaches, and finding no success. Before one frame she lay on the ground, lining the aiming dots on the lane with the pins at the end. She jotted formulae and calculations on a totally unnecessary paper scorecard with tiny pencil.

When Lotte nervously finished up her penultimate frame, Diana approached the lane with her wand out and muttered a spell. Green lights flickered down the alley. The guy with the stick came by. "Pardon, m'am, but I'm gonna have to ask you to stop this witch business. What are you actually doing?"

"Checking the elevation. There's something off about it. Statistically I shouldn't be failing this badly. I'm checking my wrist, I'm working on my approach..."

"I assure you m'am, that's not the case."

"My spell agrees with you." She pressed the tines of her wand against her hip and pushed it in to collapse it, the bite of the metal points satisfying her. That got Akko's attention. "But I'm not sure I agree with it."

"Please, m'am, Astro Lounge promises the highest-quality bowling with no duplicity on our parts. And, uh, I'll let you go this time but I'm pretty sure we have a no-spells policy. But I'll check. Have a good bowl, m'am."

Diana took Sucy's unused ball from the return and hurled it at the pins. It took a heart-stopping bounce and skipped over to the gutter in the unused alley to their left. Before she could bite her lip Akko spun her around and lowered her into a deep and vigorous French kiss, her teeth instinctively shying away from hurting her girlfriend.

"Akko..." Diana said.

"Maybe we should call it early, Diana. You're mad, like, in a big way."

"Because it's _hard_ and I want to _defeat it_."

"Phrasing!" Lotte said.

"Exactly!" Akko said.  "I mean, the way you're acting is why I'm concerned, that's exactly what I mean. I wouldn't let you drive or swordfight like this. Remember, we're watching the anxiety, right?"

"We are," Diana grumbled.

"We are," Akko said, kissing her forehead. "Come on, let's get a snack."

* * *

At the bar, Akko learned yet another horrifying fact about Diana.

"You've never had chicken nuggets," Akko said.

"Why would I ever have a reason to eat chicken nuggets?" Diana said, regarding the pile of fried food Akko ordered. "That was harsh, I apologize. I mean, I've had an eye on my nutrition ever since I was a young girl, and I'm not the fast-food type even when I'm not being mindful of nutrition, so... no."

Akko picked up a chicken nugget and put it in Diana's mouth. "Step one. Step two, chew. Step three, swallow. Real easy, right?"

Diana followed Akko's instructions. "Well. That tasted like fried breading with a hint of chicken and salt."

"I know, right?" Akko said, dipping a nugget in it-wasn't-called-szeschuan-on-the-menu-but-it-definitely-was-supposed-to-be sauce and munching it. "God's perfect snack food."

Nearby, the other two were hanging out at the arcade. Sucy bonelessly flopped against a strength-test punching bag. Lotte meanwhile prowled the arcade cabinets for something that appealed to her aesthetics.

"'Polybius?'" she said, reading the title on a stark black cabinet.

Sucy gently steered her away. "That one's in the teacher's lounge, I've snuck in there a few times. And it's on free play."

"Oh, alright... how about that one? 'My Biomechanical Angel.'"

"Eh, sure, you might like it." Sucy licked her lips and popped in a couple of tokens.

"Ah, wait, let's see what the story is!" Lotte said, taking her place as player one.

"Oh, of course." Sucy tapped her fingers near the fire buttons and waited for Lotte to snap up the bait.

The story demo began, panning up a tall toy castle in a child's bedroom, revealing a blonde princess doll singing a licensed song clip that definitely was not licensed. A mechanical spider-person emerged from the shadows and captured her. The citizens of the toy kingdom quivered in two frames of animated terror, until a pair of ludicrously tonally-inconsistent 90s action hero... action... figures... maybe? The scale was so implausible it looked like two grown men were out to save a princess doll.

Lotte's eyes glistened. "oh my god we have to save her"

"Guess we gotta," Sucy said, as the game began and Lotte lead the charge in slaughtering their way through a million mooks as instrumental samples from The Crow's soundtrack played.

A couple of levels later Akko checked in on them. "So, we're full of food and ready to take on the lanes. You guys ready?"

"Can't. Princess," Lotte said, fixated on the hordes of foes.

"You heard her. Gotta save the day," Sucy said.

"You sneaky sucker," Akko said. "Alright, Diana, guess it's you and me."

* * *

Diana stood rigid, facing her enemy head-on. The alley and all the little pins mocked her as "Crazy" by Aerosmith played over the alley speakers. "It's you or me," she said to the no. 1 pin.

"And it's gonna be them," Akko said, hugging Diana from behind.

"Akko, I..."

"Shh. Relax a sec."

It took a minute, but she did exactly that. Her arms fell limp at her side, her forehead felt loose and rubbery from how long it had been furrowed. Akko pressed Diana's hips into hers, put her arm under Diana's right, gently clutching her hand in her hand. "Match what I'm doing," Akko said into Diana's ear, just loud enough to be heard. "Move with me. Like this. Arm out, straight, arm forward, straight. Watch the elbow. Thumb stays up. Aim with your thumb. Like that..."

Diana nodded.

"Easy strides, confident. Wind back, fling forward, let go at the right moment. Right here. Thumb up, thumb up, that's the hard part... make sure it doesn't stick in the ball. You want the right-sized hole for your fingers--"

"--phrasing!" Lotte said all the way over in the arcade.

"--and the right weight for your arm so you don't over-exert. You hear me?"

"I hear you," Diana said.

"Good." Akko kissed her neck just below her ear. "You're the smartest witch I know, you'll master this. All you gotta do... is relax. It's a game. We're here to have fun and throw heavy stuff. It's nothing if you're not having fun. And if you don't have fun after this, you can hit the arcade, maybe get a drink, and I'll burn off the rest of the second game, okay?"

"I... we can't just leave?"

"I have this body-feeling that's missed bowling like a flower misses sunlight. I gotta work this out or I'll go crazy."

"...You're getting poetic."

"This brings it out in me."

"I can stand more bowling if it makes you more poetic."

"Ready to take your next shot?"

"I am..." Diana said. Akko let her go and gave her a gentle nudge towards the ball return. Diana ran her fingers along the stored bowling balls, turning one of the lighter ones 'til the holes faced her. She warmed up, getting a feel for the weight. She stepped up, took a gentle practice swing; and with a burst of motion she charged the alley and let the ball fly. It rolled slick and straight and smashed the no. 1 pin at an angle, knocking out seven of the pins.

Diana blinked. The scoreboard played an animation of a bowling ball kicking in the door to a pin restaurant and throwing axes at seated pins. The word "SEVEN" hovered over a little bitty pin weeping over a larger pin with an axe in its back.

"What is wrong with these people?" Diana said.

"Woo! Nice throw!" Akko said, pulling Diana into a hug.

"Huh... it was?" Diana said.

"Oh yeah. Great start. And it looks like you got a lot of time to warm up before the final frame."

Diana rubbed her wrist. "Alright... let's give it a try."

* * *

"No no no no no no _nonono_!" Lotte said, losing her last life getting stomped on by a toy T-rex with an upside-down cross tattoo on its side. She watched the CONTINUE? screen helplessly, ticking down to 0 as Spider's monstrous, two-frame laughing face filled the screen. "This isn't over, Spider. I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna download you on MAME and I will beat that smug grin off your face! And then we'll see who gets to marry the princess."

"Bet it's you," Sucy said, sipping from a strawberry daiqiri pitcher.

"That's the spirit!" Lotte said, holding out a hand. Sucy didn't leave her hanging, because she was evil, but not _that_ evil.

"Come on. Let's bowl. I got a lot of anger to work out." Lotte rubbed her eyes, trying not to see the world rendered in pixels.

The guy with the stick was pulling out the bumpers covering the gutters.

"Hey, somebody's playing Quitter Bowlin'," Sucy said.

"You better believe it!" Akko said, appearing suddenly behind Sucy and scaring a cup or so of daiqiri out of her pitcher. "Hi, by the way. Let's just goof off a little bit, it's not like this is a league game or anything! Plus, Diana could use the confidence boost."

Diana was sipping a sparkling virgin cocktail of some description and looking contently at the music video for "Fly" by Sugar Ray playing over the pins.

"Realtalk," Sucy said, "you've got Diana Zhardamned whipped and that's impressive."

"She's not whipped!" Akko said. "She's in a weird place I know real well, so I sorta took the lead, got her pointed in the right direction, you know? She's real gentle, she just needs a little guidance now and again to keep her steady."

"That sounds like the exact opposite of Diana in every way."

"Are you dating her?"

"No?"

"Then I think I can pull rank on telling you about what she's like." Akko puffed out her chest. "Now say 'cheers' and let's roll."

"Cheers."  Sucy tapped her pitcher against Akko's double White Russian.  Smiling, Akko returned to her girlfriend to chat a little before the next game.

"Gotta say," Sucy said, "Leader Akko is kind of neat..." She poured some of her frozen drink directly into her mouth.

"She's growing up before our eyes," Lotte sighed.

"I must humble her."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the Chill LWA Discord for suggestions!


End file.
